Toronto Hydro: PowerUp Infrastructure Improvement Program

[Tza]

Mods, should this thread not be under the transportation & infrastructure heading? Also, I feel like we should be having a hydro thread and possibly a Bell FTTH thread?

Interesting to hear about your experience Spider. You can definately welcome a lot of knowledge to the conversation. And yes, you are right. The FTTN is pretty much complete in the city of Toronto. As for replacing the service to the home from copper to fibre, you are right this will not be done unless they are at the point where FTTH is already implemented and your service needs to be replaced due to fault/damage. They will not just replace your service for the sake of improvement over the curernt equipment. Just not economical.

Back on topic to hydro. Priority at the current moment is to rehab plant at the end of its life before relocation projects are given the green light. Rehab work is really interesting process due to its complexity. If anyone has pics of Entera (TO Hydro primary contractor) doing rehab or new civil work it would be nice if they could post some shots.

 

[Tewder]

Tewder, I agree that change needs to be made but what I am saying is pole replacement needs to be done now due to life span. Plans are most likely to bury eventually but they can only do so much each year with the funds that are provided to them by the gov't. Unfortunately, price of hydro is regulated which means that money attributed to rehab work comes from the powers to be and not from the consumers monthly hydro bill.

I'm not blaming Hydro specifically. In fact I'm more than happy to blame City Hall instead. I think it has to start with the vision/policy.

As for Roncesvalles, we do not know if they will not end up burying the hydro once the work starts for sidewalk / curb reconstruction. So far, the work completed by Comer & Varcon was for water main replacement. This only requires excavation of the roadway. When (and if) the hydro is buried it will be under the sidewalk for the purpose of tie-in services to handwells for street lights and positioning of manhole lids for hydro vaults. They are probably just waiting for the green light from the City's engineers before they announce their plans. A lot of the time, it is excluded from the original call documents since finalization is not complete at the time. I agree though that the coordination between the City and the utility companies is absolutely horrible.

Some potential good news then!

 

[Tza]

I was in the Junction last night grabbing Indian food and noticed that Entera has almost finished replacing all of the handwell and/or lids for the streetlighting. Really neat seeing the new units as they have changed from a metal cast to HDPE. They even have a centred tow hook which makes popping the lid very convenient and quick. Even though the contractor is my direct competition it is nice to see good quality work being done. Clean saw cuts, flush installations and smooth asphalt tamping. Also looks like they have caused minimal disruption to the area and were even thoughtful enough to store their backfill on a dead end side street instead of leaving it on Dundas where it would take up parking and or cause other issues.